And an article that you could well have posted in the cosmology section. Afterall, I don't believe anyone has ever said that the existence of other intelligent life is impossible.
In fact due to the enormity of the facts of content and extent of the Universe we inhabit, plus the "stuff of life" being everywhere we have looked, I see it as highly probable.
In fact if it was shown that we were alone, it would raise far many more questions I suggest.

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Now note that we can work backwards from the strength of the received signal to calculate how powerful an alien transmitter anywhere near HD 164595 would have to be. There are two interesting cases:

(1) They decide to broadcast in all directions. Then the required power is 1020 watts, or 100 billion billion watts. That's hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have.

(2) They aim their transmission at us. This will reduce the power requirement, but even if they are using an antenna the size of the 1000-foot Arecibo instrument, they would still need to wield more than a trillion watts, which is comparable to the total energy consumption of all humankind.

Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do, and it's hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal. This star system is so far away they won't have yet picked up any TV or radar that would tell them that we're here.

Enter the Allen Telescope Array

The chance that this is truly a signal from extraterrestrials is not terribly promising, and the discoverers themselves apparently doubt that they've found ET. Nonetheless, one should check out all reasonable possibilities, given the importance of the subject.

Consequently, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) was swung in the direction of HD 164595 beginning on the evening of August 28. According to our scientists Jon Richards and Gerry Harp, it has so far not found any signal anywhere in the very large patch of sky covered by the ATA.

Now note that we can work backwards from the strength of the received signal to calculate how powerful an alien transmitter anywhere near HD 164595 would have to be. There are two interesting cases:

(1) They decide to broadcast in all directions. Then the required power is 1020 watts, or 100 billion billion watts. That's hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have.

(2) They aim their transmission at us. This will reduce the power requirement, but even if they are using an antenna the size of the 1000-foot Arecibo instrument, they would still need to wield more than a trillion watts, which is comparable to the total energy consumption of all humankind.

Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do, and it's hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal. This star system is so far away they won't have yet picked up any TV or radar that would tell them that we're here.

Enter the Allen Telescope Array

The chance that this is truly a signal from extraterrestrials is not terribly promising, and the discoverers themselves apparently doubt that they've found ET. Nonetheless, one should check out all reasonable possibilities, given the importance of the subject.

Consequently, the Allen Telescope Array (ATA) was swung in the direction of HD 164595 beginning on the evening of August 28. According to our scientists Jon Richards and Gerry Harp, it has so far not found any signal anywhere in the very large patch of sky covered by the ATA.

Indeed the article makes it plain that there are several reasons to be sceptical that this signal, if it was really detected at all, would be due to an alien broadcast. But they are working their way through the analysis (just as they should, as professionals, having open minds and all that.)

I'd be interested to understand what natural processes there are that might give rise to a spectral band or line at 2.7cm (11GHz). It's nowhere near the classic 21cm hydrogen hyperfine line, of course.

If, on the other hand, it were a signal from an orbiting planet, one might expect there to be a Doppler shift as the plant orbits.

But if we can't reproduce the finding, then I imagine it will just go onto the long, long list of things that the credulous - or stubbornly science-hating - will embrace and overinterpret, while the more sensible withhold their endorsement

You should notify SETI then because they sure have been wasting a lot of time and money on nothing.

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Or you could see what SETI is saying about this "signal"...

Although the discovery will be discussed at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico, on Sept. 27, SETI researchers aren’t showing much enthusiasm about the signal.

“I was unimpressed,” Eric Korpela, an astronomer with Berkeley SETI, wrote on the organization’s website. “Someone will look at it with Arecibo, and we’ll be along for the ride. And I’ll check the SETI@home database around that position. And we’ll all find nothing. It’s not our first time at this rodeo, so we know how it works.”

SETI astronomers have swung the Allen Telescope Array in Hat Creek, California, in the direction of the supposed signal, yet so far have found nothing.

Shostak said sending a signal from HD 164595 to Earth would require incredible amounts of power. If the signal was being sent from a planet in all directions at once, it would require “hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have.” If the signal was being aimed at Earth, it would require power “comparable to the total energy consumption of all humankind.”

“Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do, and it’s hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal,” Shostak wrote. “This star system is so far away they won’t have yet picked up any TV or radar that would tell them that we’re here.”

Others agreed.

Astrophysicist Katie Mack told The Register that it “doesn’t look like a particularly compelling candidate for a SETI signal.” It was an isolated event, and most of those unexpected signals have other explanations.

Sure..,.maybe no aliens. Maybe another natural source of some sort. But it certainly bears looking into.

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I agree.

HD164595 does seem to host one detected exoplanet, but where there's one, there's almost certainly more. (Our solar system has at least 10 or 11, if we count the Pluto-type 'minor planets' like Sedna. More like 20 if we count the larger moons of the exoplanets like Titan or Ganymede. Hundreds if you include smaller bodies.)

The signal seems to be a one-off. Attempts to reacquire it have failed. So it may have been transient, discontinuous and unrepeated. Our present day science is ill-prepared to address phenomena like that. (The tendency now seems to be to shrug our shoulders and act like it never happened.)

Do we have anything more than a transient energy spike at a single frequency? Was it transmitting at any other frequencies? Do we have any kind of spectral information on it?

I suspect as we develop more ability to observe more and more of the skies pretty much continuously, we will be observing more and more of those unexplained transients. Some may be the result of difficulties down here in our own observing apparatus, others may be satellite interference, but others may well be astronomical phenomena that we are unfamiliar with. (Which in turn could be lots of things. Aliens would only be one possibility.)

Now note that we can work backwards from the strength of the received signal to calculate how powerful an alien transmitter anywhere near HD 164595 would have to be. There are two interesting cases:

(1) They decide to broadcast in all directions. Then the required power is 1020 watts, or 100 billion billion watts. That's hundreds of times more energy than all the sunlight falling on Earth, and would obviously require power sources far beyond any we have.

(2) They aim their transmission at us. This will reduce the power requirement, but even if they are using an antenna the size of the 1000-foot Arecibo instrument, they would still need to wield more than a trillion watts, which is comparable to the total energy consumption of all humankind.

Both scenarios require an effort far, far beyond what we ourselves could do, and it's hard to understand why anyone would want to target our solar system with a strong signal. This star system is so far away they won't have yet picked up any TV or radar that would tell them that we're here.

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I've always suspected that if we do 'overhear' aliens, it won't be communications transmissions directed at us that we hear. It might be industrial noise of some sort, the cosmic equivalent of clanging and banging associated with large scale engineering processes about which we know nothing. (We do speculate about the construction of things like Dyson spheres.) Perhaps a giant cutting torch used to cut up planets was briefly pointed in our direction, or the exhaust end of some exceedingly energetic reaction engine used as a star drive or something. Maybe it was a planet-buster bomb detonating in some unknown cosmic war.

In other words, if we hear aliens, it might just be because they are being loud.

In your outrage that anyone would expect this signal to be of alien origin, you probably didn't even notice that I was responding to spidergoat's assertion that we will never detect aliens. I mentioned SETI trying to do exactly that all these years. Obviously they DO believe aliens are probably out there somewhere and will be detected. That's all I said. So you know what you can do with your big fat strawman.

And anyway, you openly declared, several times, that you do not believe in aliens, so I do not understand why you are offering this rebuke to spidergoat for his comment.

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I believe in aliens. Always have and always will. When have I said otherwise? And since you are charging in supporting spidergoat's assertion that it will never be aliens, perhaps you can support that claim with some sort of logic or evidence. Why will we never detect aliens? Why is SETI doing all this work to detect them if there will never be aliens? Do you know something SETI doesn't?

In your outrage that anyone would expect this signal to be of alien origin, you probably didn't even notice that I was responding to spidergoat's assertion that we will never detect aliens. I mentioned SETI trying to do exactly that all these years. Obviously they DO believe aliens are probably out there somewhere and will be detected. That's all I said. So you know what you can do with your big fat strawman.

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Outrage? Dude, you read way too much into things and imply emotions that simply are not there.

SETI cast serious doubt that in this case, it was aliens, by openly saying it is not aliens. You know, the actual point.

I used to think maybe aliens. We can't exactly rule it out. But more likely they are some form of interdimensional/transhuman intelligence that is engineering human consciousness into a new phase of evolution. So much to learn. So much to discover! Live long and prosper.

"If they are not an advanced race from the future, are we dealing instead with a parallel universe, another dimension where there are other human races living, and where we may go at our expense, never to return to the present? From that mysterious universe, are higher beings projecting objects that can materialize and dematerialize at will? Are UFOS "windows" rather than "objects"?===Jacques Vallee

And since you are charging in supporting spidergoat's assertion that it will never be aliens, perhaps you can support that claim with some sort of logic or evidence. Why will we never detect aliens? Why is SETI doing all this work to detect them if there will never be aliens? Do you know something SETI doesn't?

I think the work SETI is doing is brilliant. And I doubt any scientists would think otherwise. In fact, SETI investigations belong in mainstream science. Because what they do involves actual scientific investigations, not just potential radio signals, but also looking at the chemical compositions of distant planets and stars and asteroids, especially any atmosphere of these distant objects. See the difference? Understand the difference?

See, SETI's work is about looking at the possibility of life existing on other worlds. Identifying a planet they believe could host life is one thing, it's mostly about studying what they can actually see in the images, the chemical compositions of any gas or atmosphere, where they are situated around a star or stars. Where they are situated in their galaxies. Would aliens send a signal towards Earth in such a way? Why would they? Simply put, they would not know of our existence. It is 94 light years away. And there is no confirmation that it is from that particular system. As SETI note, if it is aliens who are so advanced that they are able to garner that much energy to send out a signal to outspace (ie all round), that is an insane venture and if they were targeting it in our direction, the question of why they would remains unanswered. Why expend such a ridiculous amount of energy towards a system that they would not know had intelligent life forms? The whole thing makes little sense. Because to send out a 'signal' like this would take a tremendous amount of energy. So they are either advertising to the whole universe (and possibly endangering themselves in the process - ie if more advanced life forms could be hostile to them) and wasting a veritable shit-tonne of energy to do so, or aiming at it us, without knowing we exist...

HD164595 does seem to host one detected exoplanet, but where there's one, there's almost certainly more. (Our solar system has at least 10 or 11, if we count the Pluto-type 'minor planets' like Sedna. More like 20 if we count the larger moons of the exoplanets like Titan or Ganymede. Hundreds if you include smaller bodies.)

The signal seems to be a one-off. Attempts to reacquire it have failed. So it may have been transient, discontinuous and unrepeated. Our present day science is ill-prepared to address phenomena like that. (The tendency now seems to be to shrug our shoulders and act like it never happened.)

Do we have anything more than a transient energy spike at a single frequency? Was it transmitting at any other frequencies? Do we have any kind of spectral information on it?

I suspect as we develop more ability to observe more and more of the skies pretty much continuously, we will be observing more and more of those unexplained transients. Some may be the result of difficulties down here in our own observing apparatus, others may be satellite interference, but others may well be astronomical phenomena that we are unfamiliar with. (Which in turn could be lots of things. Aliens would only be one possibility.)

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I'm not sure what alternative there is to shrugging our shoulders, if the observation cannot be reproduced. After all, if one cannot reproduce it, it cannot be the object of further study. What one normally does with an interesting reported observation is to have a go at reproducing it but, if that proves unsuccessful, transfer one's energies to more rewarding activities. That's what is being done in this case, which seems reasonable to me.

I note you say that "present day science is ill-prepared" to deal with such phenomena. Do you have a suggestion as to what might be done differently, given that we live in a world of finite time and resources?

I'm not sure what alternative there is to shrugging our shoulders, if the observation cannot be reproduced.

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I'm not sure either. One option might be to develop the ability to observe the entire sky continuously for sudden energy transients at a wide range of frequencies. I'm not sure whether this Russian radio-telescope was designed to do any part of that, but that's the idea.

After all, if one cannot reproduce it, it cannot be the object of further study.

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One could try to gather as much information about it in real-time, as it was happening, as possible. I suggested spectral readings and I'm sure that there are more variables.

What one normally does with an interesting reported observation is to have a go at reproducing it but, if that proves unsuccessful, transfer one's energies to more rewarding activities. That's what is being done in this case, which seems reasonable to me.

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That certainly seems to be what these "SETI" people are doing. It suggests to me that they have one idea of what alien intelligences might sound like fixed in their heads and aren't willing to budge off it: Aliens will be beaming 'hello, we're here' messages at Earth, and they will be doing it continually. My question is why would they do that? Why would they even suspect that we are here? Why would they want to communicate with us if they did?

That's why I speculated about us overhearing other energetic processes associated with intelligence, processes whose electromagnetic signatures might not have been intended as communications at all, might have been directed at earth for a short time entirely by accident in the course of an emitter maneuvering or something, and might not be repeated on any kind of schedule just to please 'SETI' researchers.

Even if they aren't associated with extraterrestrial intelligence, they might be signs of hitherto unknown astrophysical processes that aren't continuous and don't repeat themselves on demand.

Perhaps 'SETI researchers' shouldn't be so quick to dismiss mysterious signals just because they don't fit into their preexisting research paradigm. At the very least, they should admit that they don't know at this point what this particular signal was and perhaps they never will.

One wonders how many unexplained events like this are just filed away somewhere, because researchers don't know what else to do with them.

In their defense, I realize that they were probably feeling pressured by idiot-journalists and wanted to avoid hysterical 'Aliens Detected!!!' headlines from going out with their names on them. So they may have been more circumspect than the situation really justified.

Uh no. Not another change. The fact that I suspect that ufos aren't aliens but interdimensionals in no way means I don't think aliens exist on other planets. In fact I'm quite sure of it. I just don't think they are visiting us right now. There's some other intelligence behind ufos. Real aliens are not going to look humanoid and aren't going to abduct humans for medieval experiments and ecological slideshows. Are we clear now?

KittamaruAshes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums.Valued Senior Member

Why wouldn't aliens look humanoid? The human shape is extremely efficient for a multitude of tasks, from hunting and gathering to construction with basic or advanced tools, long distance travel, etc. It's... pretty much optimal for an industry - capable species living on land.

Granted, this is presuming a roughly earth like planet of origin. If you are expecting... I dunno, giant space jellyfish, well, it isn't impossible but the conditions that would result in such a species would be unique to say the least

I'm not sure either. One option might be to develop the ability to observe the entire sky continuously for sudden energy transients at a wide range of frequencies. I'm not sure whether this Russian radio-telescope was designed to do any part of that, but that's the idea.

One could try to gather as much information about it in real-time, as it was happening, as possible. I suggested spectral readings and I'm sure that there are more variables.

That certainly seems to be what these "SETI" people are doing. It suggests to me that they have one idea of what alien intelligences might sound like fixed in their heads and aren't willing to budge off it: Aliens will be beaming 'hello, we're here' messages at Earth, and they will be doing it continually. My question is why would they do that? Why would they even suspect that we are here? Why would they want to communicate with us if they did?

That's why I speculated about us overhearing other energetic processes associated with intelligence, processes whose electromagnetic signatures might not have been intended as communications at all, might have been directed at earth for a short time entirely by accident in the course of an emitter maneuvering or something, and might not be repeated on any kind of schedule just to please 'SETI' researchers.

Even if they aren't associated with extraterrestrial intelligence, they might be signs of hitherto unknown astrophysical processes that aren't continuous and don't repeat themselves on demand.

Perhaps 'SETI researchers' shouldn't be so quick to dismiss mysterious signals just because they don't fit into their preexisting research paradigm. At the very least, they should admit that they don't know at this point what this particular signal was and perhaps they never will.

One wonders how many unexplained events like this are just filed away somewhere, because researchers don't know what else to do with them.

In their defense, I realize that they were probably feeling pressured by idiot-journalists and wanted to avoid hysterical 'Aliens Detected!!!' headlines from going out with their names on them. So they may have been more circumspect than the situation really justified.

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As I understand it, the SETI logic is that for an alien signal to be strong enough to reach us it would pretty well have to be beamed intentionally. That, I surmise, is why there are these calculations on the enormous power of an event that radiated in all directions sufficiently strongly for us to detect it.

There is a huge problem with admitting unreproducible findings to data sets: you inevitably get vast amounts of false data, because equipment in reality does give false data quite often, and you do not have a means of identifying any data in that haystack of junk that may, possibly, not be false.